In an interview with Mint, Benjamin Boesch, digital and e-commerce head, VFS Global, sheds more light on some of new initiatives and their impact on user experiences
With more people travelling abroad for work, education or vacation, visa outsourcing companies, such as VFS Global, which is responsible for handling visa applications for more than 60 governments, are taking it to the next level with initiatives like e-visa, mobile biometrics and chatbots. In an interview with Mint, Benjamin Boesch, digital and e-commerce head, VFS Global, sheds more light on some of these initiatives and their impact on user experiences. Edited excerpts:
What progress has VFS Global made with its digital transformation initiatives?
It is important to understand what kind of industry we are in. We are working with governments across the globe to facilitate their visa application process and the application process is mostly data-based. Now, we have started digitization of the document flows for many governments, so that you don’t have to actually come to visa application centres with documents anymore.
The next step, which we have already started, is the online to offline integration of the biometric enrolment process. Because, in the end, users have to go to visa application centres to give your fingerprints and take photo of your face. This process can as well be done remotely with mobile biometric kit.
What is holding back the adoption of e-visa applications?
I believe many governments prefer a process where every application is screened extensively and, more importantly, where biometric data is being collected in advance to check the fingerprints and face against existing databases.
How’s Viva chatbot enhancing VFS Global’s customer experience?
The big benefit of Viva is that it understands from previous interactions, what customers and VFS consider as useful information. The more interaction Viva has the better its answers get.
It is very efficient in guiding the applicant through the process of submission of documents and then the enrolment of biometric data. On top of that, it also radically increases the response time by replacing an interaction with call centre through chats. Also, it has helped us understand which queries to focus on to improve the user experience.
How do you ensure a seamless experience to applicants during peak travel seasons to any particular destination?
One of the larger tasks that VFS has is to make sure that nobody has to queue up for a long period of time. We use multiple techniques, starting with analysing the previous years’ trends and travel patterns.
Events, such as the Cricket World Cup, changes the travel significantly. We use data analytics to predict when the demand is coming, so we can expand the capacity of our visa application centres.
A lot of booking happens through travel and booking apps. Any plans to tie up with any such platform for visa applications?
Absolutely, I think this is the next step of integration we’re looking at. As a matter of fact, we are working with not just multiple large travel companies, but also digital and consumer products companies, like marketplaces or social media and messaging services, to make it easier for applicants to apply for e-visa.
We are also working to ensure that when a customer has to submit that passport information as part of the flight booking, they won’t have to enter it again in the visa application process. We expect first such solutions in the second half of 2019 in China and India.
